Big news this week is that we're getting the watchface SDK ready to be out into the wild. We're going to publish it during the 2nd week of April. We're also publishing a firmware update next week, and while we have definitely not finished our manufacturing work, over 40,000 Pebbles have been built to date.

Firmware Update Next Week

In other news next week we'll be publishing a firmware update for Pebble, version 1.9. With this latest update, we've changed around the interface flow. Watchfaces are now at the bottom of the window stack; if you keep pressing the back button from anywhere inside Pebble's menus, you'll get to your previously displayed watchface. The right top and bottom (up and down) buttons now change between different watchfaces you've installed on your Pebble. This simplifies the main launcher menu. We've also made a lot of changes under the hood on the text rendering engine, making it easier and faster for developers to display text on Pebble.

Watchface SDK

Right from the beginning, PebbleOS was built with multiple apps in mind. This was mainly in reaction to the developer response to our first watch, inPulse. In the fall, as we began work on the user facing apps on Pebble, we started using a prototype of the SDK internally to develop watchfaces for Pebble. That's when we knew that the first release of the SDK would be mainly geared towards watchfaces as this was the first type of app that would be well supported. It turns out games are similar in structure (only require button inputs), so they are also candidates for this revision of the native SDK :)

Important note: the proof-of-concept Pebble watchface SDK will not enable access to the accelerometer (or magnetometer), or communication between watchfaces and smartphones (among other major deficiencies).

As a small company, we had to be very careful with our focus and priorities. We knew that getting Pebble into mass production and shipping watches to you, our Kickstarter backers, needed to be our prime objective. We also knew that the out of box experience was important which is why we worked really hard to support the wide variety of Android devices and iOS variations right from the start.

During the 2nd week of April, we'll be releasing a proof-of-concept watchface SDK. It's a work in progress, and there's a 99% chance that we're going to be changing a lot of the APIs...but it's an important first step towards shifting our focus towards supporting developers. I know we have communicated very poorly to developers up until this point, but we hope that you'll understand how important it was for us and for Pebble as a platform to have the initial release of the hardware go well.

We made the decision to beta test the watchface SDK with hacker backers. It's been incredible seeing just what a small subset of the Pebble developer community has created in a short period of time. As soon as the watchface SDK is released, developers will be free to share all apps that they've created. The good news is that the following 3 apps will be available as soon as firmware version 1.9 is released next.

If you're searching for inspiration for your first Pebble watchface design, look no further than the fantastic Pebble Concepts site, hosted by RichardG. We're big fans of a bunch of designs there, but remember that some designs will not be implementable using the proof-of-concept watchface SDK. Pebble's display is 144 x 168 pixels, black and white only.

Some of the awesome Pebble-compatible designs that Pebblers have submitted to RichardG's site!

Tidbits from the Pebble World

Production of Red lenses happened this week (the first colour that has gone into production so far). Next step is to optically bond the display to these lenses, which will be happening next week.

Two thousand long watch straps will be shipped next week by letter mail. Over 85% of the Kickstarter backers who ordered long straps are in this first batch.

Over 40,000 Pebbles have been manufactured so far, with many more on the way (check ispebbleshipping.com for recent stats)

We're doing our best to work our way through all technical questions and issues. The best spot to start if you have any issues is at help.getpebble.com, then if you continue to have a problem, please use the 'Contact Support' or 'Email Support' button inside the Pebble iOS or Android app.

We know we've got a lot of work ahead of us, but we're really pumped up so far with the early reactions from Pebblers on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, our (new) forums and more! While we can't respond to everything out there, we do read voraciously. Keep the feedback coming, thanks Pebblers!

Comments

I just switched to black. Giving folks that is the only smart thing Team Pebble has done right in a long, long while. Now let's see if they can live up to their claims of when it will ship... Any bets?

I've backed on the FIRST day, with 2 color pebble (gray and orange) so, as you can imagine, I am still waiting.
And just few minutes ago, I've noticed a link on my pebble account, a link that allowed me to change colors to black (which I did). My status changed immediately to stage 3 (Processing Shipment). I was also asked to enter my paypal account email, as Pebble will credit me $10 per Pebble.
I am thankful for the option to change the color, it's just bit late, this should be done LONG time ago. The credit is more then required.
But I also think that we color backers should be compensated on the top of that, with something simple, like maybe an extra band, t-shirt....
That would be fair, in my opinion anyway.
I know, that is not gonna happened, but this would show class on the Pebble team side.

I post it here also:
Update 09.04.2013
I pledged at 27. April 2012:
On 12. March 2013 i received the email that i should check my adress for shipment.
On March 29.03.2013 i received that my pebble is shipped now...
Pfff 17 days from shipement is ready to ship....
Today, 9. April 2013 Pebble finally arrived (had to pay 20€ for customs, pff, but okay)

But (on android) it worked 1a from the first second, pairng, watchfaces, cool!
Looks great, i like it when i shake my wrist that the backlight goes on, and so on...

My black Pebble arrived today here in Germany (backed April 18) . Actually it arrived on March 18, but we had just left for a 2 week vacation then... Luckily our neighbour persuaded the post office to hold on to it for 2 weeks, usually they send stuff back after one week. First day after our vacation I was at the post office. I almost had the parcel in my hands when the guy turned the parcel around and saw the sticker "this parcel has to go though customs first...", so they could not give it to me - aaaargh !. The same day I read about the customs problems with the watch here in Germany and was devastated... Yesterday a letter arrived, that I could pick up my parcel from customs. So I took all the paperwork I could find (receipt, CE certificate...) and prepared for the worst - but it was simple, not at lot of questions asked, I payed tax and got my pebble !
The pebble is charging now, so far everything works & looks fine, but I could have done without the drama !

So, I've been wondering what was going on with Pebble for the last month, since the updates have stalled, and ispebbleshipping.com seems to indicate production is stalled. And now... I got a mail saying that my pebble has been shipped! AWESOME!
Ten minutes after the first mail, another mail appears: my pebble has been shipped!
Ten minutes later, another mail: my pebble has been shipped!
Etc.

Ok, so my pebble has finally shipped! (Coincidentally, the day after I posted the message here and mentioned them a few times on twitter). They've sent me THREE confirmation emails so far, is their system glitching or are they being petty?

I want to know, why did you stop producing pebbles for so long time? Do you have any problems? Status of my order is still "Shipping Address Complete". Why don't you write any information about actual status of your work. We are waiting for our watch for one year instead of 3 month!!! I am very dissapointed of the situation!!!

Hey Pebble Team. I received my watch and I love it. Thank you guys (and gals) for putting all the hard work and effort into releasing a quality product. Best of luck in your future endeavors and I look forward to seeing what the devs can come up with for this thing! Cheers!

Media and competition stuff isn't a reason for giving poor customer service. The media were all gathered together at CES to let them know Kickstarter Pebbles would ship in 8 weeks (which didn't happen and won't happen for at least a full month). The media ALREADY know this information so going out and addressing the issue can't be worse than saying nothing and having a flood of angry backers leaving comments.

I still believe that EVERYTHING should have been tested out (changing lens molds, Germany shipping, ramping up the production to 15K units per week) BEFORE announcing anything (especially at CES).

Superbacker

What everyone seems to forget is that any negative comment or status Pebble might throw out to the backers is also seen by the media and the competition. Pebble may well be holding back on an update for that reason.

I wonder why pebble doesn't out right mention their folly at each update stating the issues and what is being done to mitigate current and future complications. It's like no one in this company has ever had to answer for any problems they may have had in any of their daily operational processes.

We are backers of a product, so we should be given some sort of clear and concise idea on what is happening at the ground level. Instead we're force fed some PR jargon about how excited these guys are about the next iteration of their SDK, some snazzy photos of some colors and coming soon faces.

Sounds like there needs to be a post mortem AMA on reddit so we can directly ask these guys on a bi-monthly basis what is the deal. Is it so hard to be honest and transparent?

@Donald, you're reply means nothing quite frankly. You have said nothing which adds to the discussion nor what I previously posted. After the debacle they have had with getting the blacks manufactured and shipped, they should have offered colored backers during the black manufacturing process a chance to switch before stopping black manufacturing. Referring back to update #25 is meaningless to what I originally said.

@Paradox: The timing on your decision is too little, too late. They already started the conversion to colors with the downtime. There was a small window of opportunity when they released the final plastics outcome back on Update #25. Eric allowed people to e-mail Pebble, which led to manual account adjustments and refunds for the color bump. It caused more problems than solutions as they were not set up for customer service to deal with this sort of thing at that time. I still think their CS is lacking staff.

@Ramon: Every tweet I send to them regarding features I'd like to see added to the OS, they keep talking "core processes" back to me. You'd think, by now, they'd have such "core processes" ironed out?!? They have nearly 55,000 units in the field, FFS!!! They're still focusing on "core processes"??? Does that mean they released BETAS?

I finally got the watch but, I am a little bit disappointed in the way the developers are getting back to people if they are getting back to them, specially the backers like me. So far I have sent them three emails about the watch not functioning as expected and I can understand that, they can not get back to everybody but at least they should have some respect for the backers because after all, we are the first ones to get the watch and test it at the same time so, we the backers are doing the developers a big favor so, it would be nice if they return or reply to our emails. For starters, they advertised that the watch battery will last approximately between 5 to 7 days and after receiving few texts and few phone calls in one day, I had to recharge the watch and now what I do is just recharge it every night. Second, all the facewatch that are capable of displaying 12 or 24 hour format are only displaying 24 hour format regardless of me making the changes or having the watch on 12 hour format and my third email was in regard of not receiving emails but that one I can understand because the developers posted the fact that, they are working on it but in the beginning I was even having problems setting up the phone for texts and notifications. Overall i feel that the backers should have more respect.

I can accept delays and things being different when manufacturing colors but damn... Give us the option to just get black if we want at this point. If you disclosed colors would be done so long after black I never would have never switched to a color. That is where you guys messed up the most and have now pissed off so many backers.

I've been rather cool headed through this long project but this is nuts. 3 weeks not a peep. You guys have thousands of people still waiting please get your communication straightened up, there should be at least a quick blurb every week.

So, what's going on with my colour orders? According to http://www.ispebbleshipping.com/ you haven't made anything for over two weeks now? Two weeks! You seem to have caught up with your shipping though as the graph has caught up with you.

Can't help noticing that you haven't posted an update in somewhere above three weeks on this KickStarter site either. Problems? Something you need to tell us about?

Hmm, so after a week of silence they've finally updated the graph on ispebbleshipping.com and lo and behold the manufactured total hasn't moved at all in two whole weeks! The total figure is still flatlined at 55179 so there's something very rotten in Pebble-land right now.
I suppose at least it's good to see that the shipping graphs have now caught up to the manufactured number, so all those (presumably black) Pebbles are now winging their way to backers in the US and around the world, but seriously Eric, WT-Hairy-F is going on at the factory?

I backed on April 17th 2012 and still haven't got my pebble. Been waiting nearly a year. If I'd known I would have had to wait so much longer for a colour option I would have just chosen black. So frustrating and still no idea as to when I will actually get my pebble.